


One party can't hurt, right?

by Nes22



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Being Walked In On, Coming Out, Friends to Lovers, George sleeps with a guy but its only once i swear, I'm Sorry, Implied Sexual Content, Jealous Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Kinda?, M/M, Not Beta Read, Out of Character, This Is STUPID, nothing explicit though, supportive friends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28035093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nes22/pseuds/Nes22
Summary: George finally decides to go out to a party with some IRL friends but a late night facetime call with Karl and Quackity reveals more than he intended to in front of thousands of people on stream. Why does Dream's opinion on who George’s sleeps with matters so much to him? Will George finally come out to his friends?
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 61
Kudos: 371





	1. Chapter 1

George sighed, he still had more than half of the last dream team recording to edit but he just couldn't do it anymore. He let his head drop on the desk, the cool surface relieving the dull ache pulsing behind his forehead.

So many things to do and so little time.

A discord notification chimed in the background snapping him out of his thoughts. A simple message from Dream: _'Hey, still going to that thing with your friends later?'_ , oh yeah, he also had to prepare for that, he typed out a quick affirmative response and shut down his PC, intent on taking a shower and eating something before heading out.

His IRL mates from uni had been moaning for months, relentlessly asking him to come hang out with them, inviting him to parties, and he had repetitively made up excuses of having too much work or being too tired to see them, dreading the wild things his ex-roommates always got up to. But Sapnap and Dream had encouraged him to see them, knowing George would have fun and was missing them too, and he had finally accepted.

He got out of his chair and stretched out slowly, feeling the bones in his back shift with a series of satisfying pops. He would finish the editing before the end of the week he promised himself.

After a quick shower, he sat on his couch mindlessly scrolling through Twitter, waiting for his frozen pizza to finish cooking in the oven. He liked a couple of his friends tweets, replied to Quackity and Karl who he knew were meeting up today, and even followed an account that posted really cool fanart of him and his friends (purposefully ignoring the "dnf" in their bio).

His IRL friends group chat was blowing up with texts from everyone asking different questions, from the time they were meeting up to what they should bring, George decided he would bring a pack of beers and some crisps and call it a day, he just had to go to the Tesco down the street before heading for the meeting point with his friend.

His oven finally dinged, signalling his pizza was done cooking, he got up, carefully extracting the pizza from the hot oven while trying to avoid burning himself. If he was honest he really wasn’t a big fan of big social gatherings like parties but his friends from uni had always been the very outgoing type and they couldn’t go a saturday night without staying up until early morning and drinking outrageous amounts of alcohol, often dragging George along. He remembered his uni years fondly but he was also glad he could be more relaxed living alone, with no rowdy roommates to bother him when he just wanted to stay in, play video games and chill out.

After finishing his pizza, he headed to his room and thought for a second about what outfit he should wear, he wanted to wear something nice enough but also not look like he had spent ages thinking about it. He finally settled on a white shirt, a decent pair of black jeans and a navy blue crewneck, he ruffled his hair and after a quick look in the mirror deemed himself presentable enough to go out. He pocketed his phone, his ID and credit card and spent a couple seconds trying to remember where he last put his keys, looking around the kitchen and his room before finally seeing them on his coffee table next to his cat who was currently napping. He gently petted the kitty’s soft head, letting out a soft “Awww” when he started purring, his small body rumbling under his hand, almost jealous of the quiet and peaceful night he would be spending napping around his flat.

His phone buzzed, seeing a message from his friend Luke that simply read _'hurry up mate, meet in 25 min in front of Sacha’s flat'_ , reminding him that he would be late if he didn’t get moving soon. He made sure to check that his door was locked twice before heading out into the warm night towards the nearest convenience store.

Soon enough he reached Sacha’s flat where the party was supposed to have been going on for about almost an hour already. He could already hear the music from the street, the loud bass sparking excitement and a tinge of apprehension in his heart. He felt arms wrap around his shoulders from behind and almost jumped away before realizing it was only his friend.

“Luke, you scared the crap out of me I almost dropped the beers” he huffed.

The other man laughed, a wide grin settling on his face while he looked him up and down.

“Fuck they sell beers to 15 year olds these days?” he mocked.

George pouted, he had to show his ID to two different people in the store before they let him check out, but he wasn’t about to admit it and give that satisfaction to his friend, so he settled on flipping him off and shoving the beer pack into his arms.

“You know what? Hold these, they’re way too heavy” he paused for a second before seeing the teasing glint in his friend’s eyes, and already knowing what the young man was about to say, he added “please don’t talk about my noodle arms.”

The other burst out laughing and and hugged him again “I missed you and your noodle arms Georgie!”

George looked away, hiding a smile, cheeks warm, “Yeah yeah I missed you too, whatever.” He turned away towards the building, ready to head inside to get away from a possibly emotional talk.

Luke shook his head fondly and followed him into the building.

“Yo George, are you gonna pull tonight or what?”

George laughed “What the fuck? No, I’m here to see you all.”

“But Sarah is bringing her friend, this cute gay guy, you guys would definitely get along well.”

George had came out to his uni friends years ago and he loved the easy way they could talk about it without being awkward, the fact that he hadn’t done the same with Sapnap and Dream bothered him, but he felt as if it was too late now, they would surely ask why he hadn’t told them before and it would lead to a very uncomfortable conversation overall. He just didn’t know how to bring it up in a natural way, what could he even say “Hey I’m gay, surprise?” and do some jazz hands? He dismissed the thought as soon as it came.

“You know I’m not gonna be attracted to every random gay guy Sarah decides to bring around when I hang out with you guys” he said.

“Hey be open minded mate, always worth a try, he’s totally your type too, all handsome, tall and funny as hell” Luke replied.

“Okay, okay, sure.”

George rolled his eyes at the teasing smirk of his friend and knocked on the flat’s door after checking it did in fact read “34”.

Sacha opened the door, his eyes lighting up as soon as he saw the two friends, George immediately noted that the apartment behind him was pretty dark, only some flashing white and blue lights revealed about 40 people chatting and dancing in the middle of the living room, as well as a table full of bottles of different alcohol, some already almost empty.

“Georgeeeee and Luuuuuke, welcome welcome to my humble abode!”

The man was obviously pretty drunk already and smelled like smoke but George grinned in response.

“Hey big man” Luke said with an easygoing smile, “maybe let us in?” he gestured to Sacha that was still standing in the doorway looking somewhat dazed.

“Oh my god, I’m sorry! Come in and make yourself at home.” Sacha exclaimed, pulling them both inside, taking the beers from Luke’s arms to set them on the table.

Various friends and acquaintances came up to say hi to them, greeting George enthusiastically, looking excited to see him again, before Luke finally tugged George away and brought him to the drinks table and shoved a shot of what looked like vodka in his hand.

“Come on, don’t be a baby George, tonight you’re getting wasted.”

George took a second to think before deciding that getting drunk couldn't hurt. He nodded, clinking glasses with his friend and downing the shot, face scrunching up when he registered the burning taste of the alcohol on his tongue.

“That's so gross, why do people even drink.” he said, grimacing.

His friend handed him a glass of what looked like pineapple juice that he gratefully accepted and proceeded to gulp, trying to get rid of the bad taste in his mouth.

“Wow slow down George, this also has rum in it, you just can’t really taste it with the pineapple juice covering it.”

George hummed, taking smaller sips, starting to somewhat register the slight buzz of the alcohol spreading through his body.

The next hour was spent in a haze of sweaty dancing bodies around him, talking to old friends, and accepting way too many drinks people were handing him. He was, to his surprise, having a lot of fun, the alcohol definitely helping him loosen up.

After chatting with yet another acquaintance, he moved away from the crowd and sat in a corner for a second to relax a little. He opened the discord chat he had with Dream and Sapnap replying to a text from the latter asking him how things were going with a double thumbs up and a _'gRaet :]'_.

He quickly opened twitter, seeing that some people were asking Quackity and Karl that just started a stream together if they were going to call him, as they had revealed George was the only other person that knew they were going to meet up. Sapnap had replied in a vc on stream that George was too busy “Party rockin’”, sending the chat in a flurry of confused questions about what George was doing and why he wasn’t online. He almost thought about replying but the letters were swimming on the screen and he decided against it, he had a little bit too much to drink and the way he would type would definitely give it away.

Sarah, a petite blonde who he used to take a frankly boring statistics class with, interrupted his phone break and pulled him along to the side until he was standing in front of an attractive brunette with blue eyes and a dazzling white smile.

“Hey George, this is James, James this is George, I think you guys would get along REALLY well” she giggled before disappearing back into the crowd of people, leaving them alone before either of them could say anything.

“Uh hi, it’s nice to meet you” said George, pocketing his phone and extending his hand.

James clasped his hand in both of his pulling him closer, grinning.

“Hey George, I’ve heard a lot of things about you, but Sarah wasn’t lying when she said that you were really cute.”

George blushed, letting a very undignified squeak escape him at the very forward flirting.

After some back and forth banter, they moved to sit in the corner of the living room, thighs pressed against each other on the small couch and talked about everything and nothing, sharing a couple of drinks for a good hour, occasionally getting up to dance when James recognized a song and dragged George along to the dance floor.

George wasn't a blind or naive man, he definitely knew where it was going. Was it a mistake? Probably not, right? He didn’t want to be in a serious relationship with his career taking off, knowing his working hours were very much not compatible with a normal person in the UK. But this wasn’t serious, he could have fun for a night.

He briefly wondered what Dream would think about all of this before dismissing the thought. Why did he even think about that? Dream was his friend, of course he would approve, right?

Soon James started softly kissing his neck, his cheeks, the corner of his mouth before George cupped his jaw and brought him in for a kiss that James was eager to reciprocate. One thing led to another and before long James and George were on the bed in a locked bedroom far away from the living room, James leaving bruising hickeys on the smaller man’s neck.

They emerged an hour later, at about 3 am, the party slowly dying down in the living room. Luke immediately spotted them and swooped George away with the excuse of needing someone to go with him to the bathroom.

“Omg George” he whisper-yelled “I can’t believe you actually got laid, I told you Sarah was bringing a good one!”

“Shut up, you idiot.” George face’s was burning red but he was smiling, he handed him his phone “Hold this, I actually need to pee.”

George had barely closed the door to the bathroom when the phone in Luke's hands started ringing, he squinted trying to read the name of the person calling on the too bright screen, it was a FaceTime call from someone named "Karl". Luke fumbled with the phone, trying to decline the call by swiping blindly on the screen, almost dropping the phone when he noticed he had accidentally answered instead. Two smiling guys were facing him "uhhhh hi?".

"Wow George sure has changed a lot since yesterday" joked Quackity, briefly turning the phone screen to a stream camera showing a close up of Luke's face looking confused.

"Uh no, this is his friend Luke, sorry George is pissing right now, I didn't mean to answer." he paused and banged on the bathroom door once, praying for George to hurry up so he could get out of this awkward situation he was way too drunk to handle.

Quackity and Karl laughed, the latter doubled over, almost falling out of his chair.

"Chat, I can't believe George pawned us off to some random dude cause he was too lazy to answer, sorry about that Luke man" Quackity said.

Luke shrugged, not really understanding the two other's hilarity.

"Are you guys at a party?" Karl questioned, trying to bring Luke back into the discussion

"Uh yeah, we are, it's kinda ending now though, I think everyone is gonna go home soon" Luke replied hesitantly, flipping the camera around showing the dark apartment with some people still lingering around. Karl turned the phone around again, facing his webcam to show the stream what they were seeing.

George chose that exact moment to finally exit the bathroom, straight in front of Luke who was holding up the phone showing them around. He looked at Luke confused and ruffled his hair.

"What the fuck are you doing Luke? Are you taking pictures?"

The hickey on his neck was very obviously on display, a stark contrast of red and purple on his pale skin.

"Uh no actually your friend.. Karl I think? He FaceTimed you and I answered but I didn't mean too, I swear" Luke answered sheepishly.

George looked scared for a second, snatching the phone away from his friend's hand, turning the camera off, but he knew the damage was already done, they were showing the screen to stream and they had seen him, how he looked, and they were probably all freaking out about it, even Karl and Quackity looked speechless. He knew the moment would be endlessly clipped and posted on Twitter.

"Hi guys" George laughed nervously "should I even ask if you were streaming?"

Quackity looked away guiltily "Yeahhh, we'll… we'll just leave you to your party okay? Sorry didn't mean to bother you man…"

"It's okay, talk to you tomorrow, see y.." before George could finish his sentence he was interrupted by Sarah almost tackling him to the ground and yelling into his ear:

"George I can't believe you actually slept with…"

George had the sense to quickly hang up before Sarah could reveal James' name and out him live in front of thousands of people.

He immediately dropped to the ground, heart racing. Luke immediately started profusely apologizing, repeating he meant to hang up and he didn't mean to film him. George put a hand on his shoulder, reassuring him it was fine and totally not his fault. Sarah looking at the two confused in the background, but George merely waved her worries away.

"Don't worry about it, nothing important" he smiled tensely, "I think I should go home now, James was very sweet."

He quickly picked up his stuff, bidding a quick goodbye to his friends, and headed back to his flat.

Once home he finally checked his phone that had been buzzing non stop since he left the party, he had a dozen texts from both Karl and Quackity apologizing, a discord message that read _'Eyy good job'_ from Sapnap with way too many emojis wearing sunglasses but also 3 missed calls and a text that said _'don't panic too much, call me back'_ from Dream. George's hands were shaking so bad, he couldn't even type a reply, he was almost outed on stream, but he hadn't been, they only saw the hickey and heard his friend talk about him sleeping with someone, so he definitely avoided the worse...right?

So why did he feel like shit? Why was he dreading what Dream would say the most?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will have a Dream POV, talking about how he feels about George's little party + chat and Twitter freaking out over George going out and maybe George streaming too! 
> 
> English is not my first language, if anyone has recommendations on how to improve or sees some grammatical errors I need to correct then please DM me! :)


	2. Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dream POV: confusing feelings and damage control

Dream had been pretty bored the whole afternoon, he alternated between writing down ideas for the SMP script and tidying up his apartment, but he was quickly running out of inspiration for the day and cleaning wasn’t helping his boredom.

He settled on his bed, laptop laying in front of him, Karl’s stream that started a bit earlier opened. He was only half listening to what they were saying, perking up when George’s name was suddenly mentioned, but the two men were only saying that the brit had been the only other person in on the secret Quackity/Karl meetup.

He tried to ignore the slight pang of hurt at the knowledge that George hadn’t told him about it despite them being on call together for a couple hours yesterday night, but he quickly dismissed it, he was glad George was close with other people too.

His thoughts drifted to what the older man was doing right now, probably regretting going to the party he had been invited too, and thinking about streaming or ideas for new videos. Or maybe he was having fun, meeting new people and he hadn't thought once about streaming and his online friends.

He had heard some stories about George’s university days, he knew they were not as tame as he led a lot of people to believe but he also knew George certainly wasn’t the world’s biggest extrovert.

Focusing back on the screen in front of him, he noticed Karl and Quackity were now singing together, looking delighted. He was glad they could meet, the two definitely getting on like a house on fire, both of them chaotic forces to be reckoned with. He wondered what George, Sapnap and his interactions would be like together on camera in real life, hopefully they would get along just as well as they did online.

The ding of a new notification slightly startled him and he changed tab to check discord to see in the dream team group chat that George had replied to Sapnap asking him how things were going. The older man seemed pretty happy and definitely drunk judging by his terrible spelling in such a short message. Dream chuckled, a drunk George would probably be really fun to witness, but he hoped his friend was sober enough to not tweet or do anything regrettable in this state.

He shut down the stream and decided to go for a quick stroll outside to clear his mind and hopefully get back into a creative mood so he could write a little more before going to sleep later tonight.

The heavy humid air of a warm Florida evening hit him right as he exited his home, almost pushing him to turn around and get back into his air-conditioned apartment. He contemplated the easy option for a second but decided against it in the end. Walking would unquestionably do him some good, he had probably walked less than the daily 10,000 steps recommended in the last two weeks combined and he was beginning to feel somewhat restless pacing around his house.

The palm trees on the seafront were gently swaying in the wind, laughters of happy couples and screams of skateboarding kids were ringing around him. A deep sense of longing settled in his chest. Dream had never had so many friends as he did these days, but sometimes he still felt lonely.

Seeing Karl and Quackity made him miss George fiercely, even though he was only a discord call away. He wanted to see him, hug him, see the corner of his eyes crinkle happily when he laughed at one of his bad jokes, call him an idiot to his face rather than thousands of miles away.

He sighed, all of his thoughts always seemed to come back to George in the end.

After walking around for a couple of hours, he decided to head home, picking up a burger on the way back. The walk had done wonders for him and he was feeling more inspired than ever, he had thought of multiple new ideas for the SMP and only needed to write them down and check with other people to see if they were okay with how he had planned things to go.

He settled down at his kitchen table, laptop in front of him, Karl stream opened once again and started mindlessly eating. He looked up from his plate when he heard Quackity ask Karl to facetime George to talk to him, he almost typed a “Don’t do it” in chat but decided that it would sound strange. George was smart enough to not answer if he wasn’t in a presentable state, and the man was probably sleeping anyways, it was a little after 3AM for him and the older man hadn’t gone to bed early at all the night before.

The sound of the call going through sparked excitement in his chest, hearing or seeing George never failed to do so. But the man that appeared on the phone screen wasn’t George, and Dream didn’t recognize him.

_Who is that? Did George manage to get his phone stolen on his first trip outside of his apartment in probably weeks? Is he okay?_

The stranger quelled his worries when he introduced himself and explained George was in the bathroom and he hadn’t meant to answer. The man looked nervous and the two men questioning him were probably not helping, he showed his surroundings and confirmed that him and George were at a party. Dream almost facepalmed at this, Twitter would love that information and he knew some variation of “#PARTYGEORGE” would surely be trending soon.

Suddenly the door of the bathroom they could see on the small phone screen opened and George came out.

Dream’s stomach flipped, the man looked positively disheveled, the definition of a _hot_ mess, his hair looked like someone had run their hand through it a hundred time, his lips were red and swollen like he had bitten them, his slightly oversized shirt exposed his right collarbone and in the middle of the exposed pale skin of his neck was a very obvious recent hickey.

_What the fuck?_

“What the fuck Luke?” George echoed his very thoughts on the other side of the screen.

Dream could see the moment the man realized he was on Karl’s stream, the fear in his eyes piercing Dream’s heart before the screen went black, the brunette having cut the camera.

The slight tremble in his voice when he asked Karl and Quackity if they were streaming hurt Dream even more, George was a private guy and this was probably one of his worst nightmares.

Dream dazedly heard the two apologize to George a couple time and George reassuring them it was okay before he was interrupted, a feminine voice blaring out of Karl’s phone speakers :

"George I can't believe you actually slept with…"

The call disconnected before anyone could hear the end of the sentence but Karl and Quackity went deadly quiet, they looked speechless and guilty. Dream quickly put the chat in Emote only mode, trying to avoid any more speculations and then dropped his head in his hands, trying to ignore the sharp hurt he felt when he heard these words.

Why was he feeling like this? This sucked for George so why did it hurt him so bad?

He should be worried for George not feeling… _jealous_?

He dismissed the feelings for later analysis and focused on damage control, he called George a couple of times and left him a text when he didn’t answer, asking him to call him back. He then sent a discord message to Karl and Quackity telling them to ask their chat to avoid going to twitter to gossip and to be respectful of George’s private life.

He opened twitter and almost immediately wished he hadn’t, his whole TL was blowing up with speculations and outlandish theories from random stans, he even saw that a person jokingly tweeted ' _dreamnotfound is now dead'_ and that they were _“going dark”_ , a thousand people had already liked the tweet and a couple hundreds had retweeted or commented, each humorous quip about the situation adding to the stress and hurt coiling in his chest.

_Fuck._

He checked back on Karl’s stream to see the man had ended it and was now hosting Fundy, he had missed the last couple minutes but nothing noteworthy probably happened besides the two men asking their chat to behave.

He tried to call George again but was met with the same repetitive ringing and the man’s bland voicemail like before.

Was George ignoring him? Was he freaking out really bad or had he gone to sleep deciding to let himself deal with the mess later?

He thought back to the man’s appearance in those couple of seconds on screen, nothing had ever sent his insides burning quite as quickly as the image of his best friend looking like that.

He wanted to see it again badly.

 _So_ badly.

He opened Karl’s twitch page and went straight to the VOD of his last stream, skipping until he reached the moment where George was on camera and pausing on a frame of the man laughing at his friend, before he had realized what happened and looked scared.

He knew he often talked about how George was attractive or cute on stream pretty frequently, he had no problem admitting the obvious, you’d have to be blind to not see it, but this… _this_ was on a whole other level than platonic appreciation.

This was want, _desire_.

It felt almost predatory to look at his best friend like this.

He slammed his fist on his table, barely registering the sharp pain in his palm where it hit the surface slightly wrong.

_I’m straight, George is straight, this is nothing but a fucked up temporary feeling._

Hopefully he could have a talk with George tomorrow and his confused brain would finally shut up.

He picked up his phone and saw a message from Sapnap: _‘Hey’_

He started typing a reply before deciding that a call would be easier, he pressed the call icon, throwing the rest of his uneaten burger away. He wasn’t hungry anymore anyways.

Throwing himself on his bed, he waited only for a couple of seconds before his friend picked up.

“Hey Dream”

“Hey”, he tried to inject some enthusiasm into his voice but he felt like he sounded pitiful.

Hopefully the other would only think he was worried for George, which he was anyways, and nothing more.

“So… George?” the younger man sounded worried but also amused.

“Yeah.. George... he isn’t replying to you either I guess?”

“No he isn’t, but I get it, this is gonna be a mess to try and fix, I don’t know what I would do if I was him. At least Quackity won’t make virgin jokes anymore” he laughed slightly.

Dream huffed “Yeah I’m sure that will make everything better.”

The call fell silent again.

“Do you think he has a girlfriend he hasn’t told us about?”

“What? No, of course not, don’t be an idiot” replied Dream, offended at the implication that George wouldn’t trust them with that information.

Sapnap hummed “What now?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do we do? Do we say something? Is it weird to say something?”

Dream frowned, he thought about putting out a short tweet to remind people to treat content creators as people and not to start unnecessary drama or pry into people’s private life without their consent.

He relayed his idea to Sapnap, who was quick to agree that that might be for the best and decided to say something similar. Once they agreed on the exact formulation of their messages they hung up and proceeded to post their respective tweets.

Their tweets both rapidly amassed thousands of retweets and likes, and he saw the number of speculative tweets on his timeline rapidly decrease.

He appreciated the fact that most of their fans had a healthy concept of boundaries and how to respect them… contrary to him, who was lusting after his friend, driving himself crazy thinking about what the other man had done earlier in the night after telling people it was wrong to do so.

He dropped his phone, a deep feeling of shame sitting at the bottom of his stomach like a rock, dragging him down to the bottom of an ocean of confusion and guilt.

He closed his eyes but the image of George, hair tousled, was burned into his retina, etched behind his eyelids, cursed to be permanently embedded in his brain.

Dream was not sure how he would ever sleep again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello people, I hope this is alright, I'm genuinely scared to disappoint people for some reason  
> A lil bit of angst for your soul  
> Please leave a comment, a kudo, or even just subscribe, it means the world to me! :)))


	3. Hello LGBTQ community

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next day, George calls dream

George woke up with a pounding headache, mouth dry and body aching. He had passed out in an awkward position on his couch last night, after deciding his bedroom was way too far for his exhausted and drunk body. 

He straightened up, swinging his legs over the side of the couch, his back protesting against the sudden movement. Mind still foggy he went through the motion of making himself a cup of coffee, swallowing an ibuprofen pill as well as a random vitamin C pill he found on his counter, wincing when he saw his face reflected in the chrome finish of the coffee pot.

He needed a shower, and maybe a nap, it was still only mid-morning according to the clock on his oven.

He slowly sipped the hot beverage while looking for his phone. He finally found it a couple seconds later, it had slipped between two couch cushions sometimes during the night, he tried turning it on but of course the device had long since run out of battery.

He sighed deeply, he knew exactly what happened last night but he wasn’t sure he had the mental energy to face it for at least a couple more hours. He didn’t even know what to say, he didn’t want to make things more awkward than they probably were already.

After plugging in his phone, he made his way to the bathroom and slowly undressed, he traced the signs of James' presence the taller man had left on his skin last night, hickeys that would take days to fade, slight bruise on his hips where the other man’s hands had passionately dug into them.

It was his own fault, he should have told him to be more careful about where he left marks, but caution was lost in the heat of the moment, and George wasn’t sure he even regretted anything.

He stepped into the shower, the scalding water taking his mind away from his concerns. He scrubbed away the sticky feeling of sweat and alcohol mixed together on his skin. His fingers ghosted over the imprints left on his hips, wondering why he had thrown himself at a random guy at a party like he was 20 again, dancing at some random shady club in the hope of going home with someone at the end of the night. 

He washed his hair, slightly humming the tune of a song he couldn’t remember the title too, the flowery smell of the shampoo his mum had recommended him when he was 12 and he hadn't bothered to change since invading his senses.

Deciding he was done with his shower, he turned the water off and shook the water off his hair, water droplets splashing onto the bathroom floor and counter. Towel wrapped around his lower half, he headed back into his bedroom after thoroughly brushing his teeth to get rid of the lingering taste of alcohol and coffee meddling together unpleasantly on his tongue.

He opted for the simplest and most comfortable outfit he could find, a pair of joggers, a baby blue t-shirt and his own black merch hoodie, and laid down on his bed, letting sleep almost overcome him before his phone started buzzing somewhere to his right. He rolled over annoyed and picked the phone up, it was almost fully charged and had turned back on, Dream had tried to call him on discord.

He didn’t expect the pang of anxiety that hit him when he saw the number of unread notifications he had.

_Well I guess I’ll deal with it now then._

He unlocked his phone, ignoring discord messages and texts he received and clicked on the twitter app icon. At the top of his timeline sat tweets from Dream and Sapnap, the two had tweeted sometime during the night asking their fans to be mindful of George’s private life and to stop tweeting all sorts of things about him or other people. George's eyes unexpectedly filled with tears but he was smiling, he was thankful for his friends, they were always the first to defend him and he knew he could trust them with his life, no matter what. 

He carefully avoided liking the tweets, trying to not show he was active and online to anyone checking. He took a deep breath and typed his name in the search bar, immediately seeing a screenshot of the trending tab from last night showing almost exclusively his name attached to various key words like ‘party’, ‘hickey’ and ‘sex’, the thought of people discussing something that private about him made him slightly nauseous so he kept scrolling, leaving the picture behind. He then saw various clips of him on Karl’s stream and his fears were confirmed, the viewers had seen absolutely everything and had heard what Sarah had said, except James’ name.

He was surprised at the amount of people actively defending his private life and asking others to take speculating tweets or clips down and to stop trending his name. But the minority of users who were being very aggressive calling him ‘their’ George and being mad at whoever he slept with, or those saying he ruined Dreamnotfound left him with a bitter feeling. He sometimes resented being so much in the public eye.

He closed the app and opened discord, Karl and Quackity both had sent him an apology for calling him unprompted and Karl even said he would delete his number from his phone if he wanted him to, which got a slight chuckle out of him. He created a group chat with both of them and typed out a message telling them to not beat themselves up over what happened, that it was very much a bad luck type of thing, they had called at the wrong time and his friend had mistakenly answered. He sent it and hesitated for a couple of seconds before adding a second message telling them to have fun hanging out together.

He was telling the truth, he truly believed they had done nothing wrong, most of the blame could be placed on him, he shouldn’t have left his drunk friend handle his phone and he should have been more careful in general.

He clicked on Sapnap’s messages next, the man had sent him a message congratulating him and after a couple of hours had sent him two other texts saying ‘Don’t worry too much George, it’s chill’ and a ‘want me to beat up someone?’, he replied with a simple ‘idiot’ and added a ‘<3’ to show he didn’t mean anything serious by it. The dumb messages had definitely lifted his spirits but he was dreading opening Dream’s messages and even more calling him.

He put his phone down and wiped down his suddenly sweaty palm on his hoodie, the soft fabric bunching up where his other hand was tightly gripping it. He took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly, trying to calm his racing heart, why was he so scared of what Dream would say? This was stupid, Dream was his best friend, it’s not like he was going to be mad at him. 

Somehow, he couldn’t get the thought of Dream accusing him of ruining the dnf bit or telling him he was irresponsible out of his head. What would he even do if the man asked for more details of the party? Should he tell him about James? About the fact that he was with a guy last night and not a girl like most people thought (with the exception of some twitter stans who were adamant he had definitely been with a man)?

He quickly determined overthinking wouldn’t lead to anything and he clicked on Dream’s contact picture that he had set as a picture of his cat Patches, he read the texts the man had sent and replied with a ‘call now?’. The text had barely been sent that his phone was already buzzing with an incoming call from the younger man.

George huffed fondly, Dream must have been really worried, and picked up.

“Hello George?” 

Dream’s voice was slightly sleepy, and George realized the blond must have been waiting for his reply the whole night and probably hadn’t slept yet. The knowledge that the other man would go that far for him made his heart flutter happily.

“Hi Dream” George's voice was also slightly rough, probably a consequence of the combination of way too much singing with his friends as well as the passive smoking he had done with all the people smoking a couple meters away from him for the whole night.

“How do you feel?”

George chuckled humorlessly “Like physically right now or about what happened?”

“Both I guess?” Dream replied, sitting up where he was previously half laying down on his desk.

“Well I have a headache but otherwise I’m feeling just peachy now that the whole internet is talking about my sex life.”

Dream winced hearing the bite in George’s tone.

“Sorry” George added, regretful “I didn’t mean for it to come out like that… it’s just that I don’t really know what to do, all of this, it feels completely out of my control.”

“You have the right to be angry, you know? The way some people are reacting to it is shitty and I don’t think anyone would blame you for going off on them.” 

“Dream I can't be angry at them, it’s my fault if this” he made a sweeping gesture with his hand despite knowing the other couldn’t see him “all of this, is out there” he paused and added more quietly more for himself than anyone else “and I avoided the worst anyways.”

“Don’t be stupid, this isn’t your fault at all, if anything it’s Karl’s and Quackity’s fault” Dream let some of his resentment towards them show “they should have hung up as soon as they saw it wasn’t you on the phone.”

Knowing that George was putting all the blame on himself, like the older always seemed to do, made Dream’s heart squeeze painfully. George was too forgiving of others but never seemed to extend that generosity to himself, always reminding himself of past mistakes and never truly letting go of his self-deprecation.

“And what do you mean by ‘avoided the worst anyways’?” he continued curiously.

George froze, how could he let that slip out ? He quietly punched the bed in front of him. What could he even say now without sounding weird? His breath quickened without him realizing it and soon he felt himself slipping into an uncontrollable panicked state.

“Wow, wow, George? Can you hear me? Are you okay?” Dream asked hearing his friend start to panic.

When the other didn’t reply he swore quietly, “Hey George, take a deep breath, it’s okay, you’re okay, I’m here.”

George had never experienced something quite like this before, he felt like he was drowning, the air rapidly filling his lungs with each shallow breath he took not changing anything.

“George, please listen to me, I need you to copy me” Dream said and proceeded to take exaggerated deep breaths “In and out, come on, inhale, exhale, slowly.”

After a couple of minutes, that felt like eternity to both of them, Dream’s voice finally pierced through the mental fog that had settled on George’s brain and the brunette slowly tried to imitate the other man. When he finally got his breathing under control a sob escaped George's throat, tears cascading on his cheeks.

“I’m okay, sorry, I didn’t mean to cry either I swear I don't know what happened.” George let out a broken watery laugh.

“It’s okay Georgie, take your time, it’s okay to feel like shit, I get it, I cry all the time too I promise.”

“You do?” George knew he sounded childish but he couldn’t care less at the moment, Dream always seemed to bring a vulnerable side of him out.

“Of course I do, I can even start to cry right now if you want” Dream teased.

“No, no, please don’t” George laughed, scrubbing his tears away.

“I… I need to tell you something” George hesitated, this was his best friend, he had talked him down from what surely seemed to be a panic attack, he deserved to know.

“Please don’t push yourself George, we can totally just chill or sleep call or something if you want, I don’t you to stress yourself out even more” Dream replied.

“No, this is important and I should have done it ages ago, I’m dumb for not doing it earlier.”

“Don’t say you’re dumb George” Dream frowned, he had absolutely no clue what the other wanted to tell him, and despite what he had said he was now very curious about what George had to tell him.

“Dream, _Clay_ , listen.”

Dream’s heart skipped a beat when he heard George use his real name, the other sounded deadly serious but hearing his melodic voice say his name still sent chills down his spine.

“I’m listening.”

Dream praised himself on the steadiness of his voice despite the pounding of his heart.

On the other side George wasn’t faring much better, the beating of his own heart almost too loud in his ears. Was he really doing this?

“Last night, at the party, I wasn’t… uh I wasn’t with a… with a girl” George almost felt like he was 19 again, coming out to his Mum in the living room of their little apartment after school.

“What do you mean?” Dream thought he understood but he needed George to say it, this sounded too unbelievable to be real.

“I’m gay Clay.”

“You’re gay?” 

Dream never felt so many conflicting emotions in his life, he was glad George told him, slightly hurt he didn’t tell him earlier, the two had been very close friends for years now. But above all, a weird sense of joy overtook the rest, if George was gay then maybe what he was feeling for him wasn’t that weird? Right? Maybe he liked George, and maybe George could like him too one day? He shook his head, dismissing the thought almost as soon as it came, what a fucked up thing to think about when your best friend just came out to you. 

“Yeah.” 

George on the other hand was anxiously waiting for a reaction from his stunned friend, he had yet to have a negative coming out experience and he really hoped his first one wouldn’t be with his best friend.

“Oh George, I’m so glad you told me, that’s amazing! I love you just the same Georgie.”

George let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“So you’re not mad I didn’t tell you before?”

“No of course not! And you know, ‘better late than never’, right?”

They both laughed.

“So this is what you meant by the ‘it could have been worse’, you were scared of being outed?” 

Dream realized in light of this new information it could indeed have been a lot worse, and he now understood why George had hung up the phone with Karl right before the name of the person he had slept with had been revealed.

“Yeah I’m glad it didn’t happen.”

George shivered lightly thinking about it, he knew most people would have been supportive but it would also be a very terrible way of coming out. Dream yawned quietly but George picked up on it anyways, feeling bad about keeping him up.

“Anyways, Dream, I’m gonna let you go to sleep, you sound tired, and I might actually go back to sleep myself.”

“Nooo George come on, don’t go... sleep call?”

George laughed, he could almost hear the pout in his friend’s voice.

“You’re such a baby, baby dweam.”

Dream tried to ignore the way the brit saying “baby” made him feel and instead replied “I’m not hearing a no, so I’m going to bed, you better not hang up.”

George smiled and put the phone on speakers and laid down, pulling the blanket over him.

“Goodnight Clay.”

“Goodnight George.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The way this story literally writes itself lowkey scares me, like I do be sitting at my desk, brain empty, just typing
> 
> Anyways, don't know how i feel about this chapter, I didn't want to go too slowburn-ish on yall but I feel weird going straight to them smooching you know?
> 
> Thank you so so much to all of those who left a comment or a kudo, it really means a lot to me, and when I feel demotivated about writing I go back and read the comments, so thanks :))))


	4. Clay?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dream being absolutely whipped and having a slight identity crisis

George woke up a couple of hours later, feeling much better than he had in the morning, he could hear the deep yet soft breaths of Dream sleeping soundly on the other side of the phone. He smiled, ignoring the flutter in his stomach when he thought of the possibility of doing a real sleepover with Dream one day, and put himself on mute to not disturb his friend who he knew needed rest.

He turned on his computer and sighed softly, should he just pretend nothing happened online or should he say something?

He felt so embarrassed now that the relief of not being outed had settled. He opened twitter and liked Sapnap and Dream’s tweets, watching dttwt go crazy over his sudden presence online. What should he tweet now? Something funny? Something serious?

_‘Well that’s embarrassing, sorry?’_

No, no apologizing.

Why did this have to be so complicated? Every action, every word, everything he did was scrutinized by thousands of people, dissected for concealed intents, hidden meanings, especially when it came to personal stories or information. 

He wondered how crazy people would go if he simply mentioned the fact that the person he had spent the night with wasn’t a woman. He knew he would get plenty of meme-y responses about how people already knew, which would honestly be pretty funny, but he wasn’t keen on making things awkward with all the shipping that happened in the fandom, especially with Dream. He had only told the man because he knew that no matter what Dream wouldn’t treat him differently.

_Wait, he wouldn't, right?_

His heart squeezed painfully in his chest, he didn’t think about the repercussions of his coming out to his friend on the dreamnotfound bit.

Why was the thought of Dream stopping the joke-flirting with him so painful?

He shut down that train of thought as soon as it came up, he refused to poke that particular sleeping bear.

He quickly exited Twitter and opened Minecraft instead, he would just go on the SMP server and gather resources or something to distract himself for a while, maybe he could farm tridents if the server was empty enough. He logged in, pressing tab to quickly check who was there with him and sighed in relief when he noticed it was only him and BadBoyHalo.

_‘Hey George! :D’_

George smiled slightly at his friend’s greeting in chat.

_‘Hey Bad :)’_

_‘You’re not streaming right? Want to vc?’_

George hesitated for a second, did he want to talk to anyone? But at the same time a call would be a welcome distraction from thinking about what happened and his confusing feelings regarding Dream.

_‘Sure, vc 4’_

He cleared his throat, to make sure he wouldn’t sound too sleepy on the phone, even if it didn't really matter, the only other person on the call being Bad.

“Hey there.”

“Hey George, how are you doing?”

George paused for a second, unsure if Bad had seen the whole stream debacle from last night or if he was still blissfully unaware. 

“Uh, pretty good, considering… everything.”

“Yeah I saw a lot of… stuff on Twitter, it was a bit of a mess, I think Dream and Sapnap’s tweets calmed things down though.” Bad reassured him.

“A bit of a mess? It was a shit show honestly, I’m glad I was asleep through most of it.”

“Language, George.”

He chuckled “Sorry, sorry.”

“Anyways, I was gonna try and get a trident, wanna come along?” George added after a short pause.

“Sure, sure.”

They stood in the trident farm for a couple of hours, chatting about various topics. George had never been the closest to BadBoyHalo, but he always enjoyed his company, the man knew when to push and when to hold back, and he had been a steady comforting presence for years. To George's relief he didn't tease him once about last night’s _situation_ and never brought it up first, they exchanged anecdotes and various stories from their childhood and teenage years, until they finally fell into a comfortable silence.

“George?” Dream’s voice pierced though the quiet that had settled between the two men.

The sudden voice startled George, who flinched away from his desk, half slipping out of his chair, hitting his knee in the process. He ignored Bad’s confusedly asking him if he was alright.

“Fuck, sorry, Clay woke up, talk to you later Bad.” 

He heard a fond huff escape Bad and a murmured “Clay, uh?” But he didn’t linger on it, disconnecting from the discord call and already picking up his phone, pressing unmute.

“Hey there sleeping beauty.”

The younger man sputtered for a second and George slapped a hand on his mouth.

_Where the fuck did that one come from?_

Dream laughed slightly, voice still rough with sleep.

“You idiot, what time is it?”

“Uh it’s 4pm for me so it should be 11am for you” he didn’t even have to think about it, the time difference between the UK and Florida ingrained in his brain.

He caught a soft meow coming from Dream’s side of the phone.

“Aw looks like Patches also wants to say good morning to you”

“Wait wait!” the younger man suddenly sounded excited “Let me turn on my camera for this.”

George’s heart skipped a beat, was Dream going to show him his face? He held his breath as the screen read “connecting camera”, only to release it when he realized the camera was pointed at Dream’s cat, sitting on the man’s bed, of course.

“Hi Gogy” Dream said in a baby voice, shaking Patches paw in a mock salute to the camera.

George laughed, mirth filling him, he almost had a damn heart attack over Dream turning on his cam and this was the thing the man wanted to do.

“George come on, turn your cam on too pleeease.”

“Jesus, you’re so whiny in the morning Dream.” George said but he cooperated, holding the camera close to his face, all the sudden way too aware that the _problem_ on his neck was very much still there and Dream would be able to see his hickey if he didn’t angle the camera properly.

“George!” Dream sounded scandalized.

“What?”

“How do you look this good after drinking that much yesterday? Are you not even hungover?”

George could feel his cheek burning red and he dropped his phone on his bed, facing the ceiling, to get away from Dream’s gaze, knowing the blonde would see him blush.

“Oh my god please shut up, I’m 24 not 45 Dream, I took an ibuprofen pill this morning, I slept a fuck ton, and I showered, of course I’m not gonna look like absolute shit.”

“I really liked it when you called me Clay.”

“What?” George said, not understanding the sudden change of subject or how to respond to what the other man just said.

Dream cleared his throat, sounding embarrassed.

“You called me Dream just now, and I-I said that I really liked it when you called me Clay… you know, like yesterday?” Dream seemed flustered, and George could see him nervously petting his cat.

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, I mean if you want to, it’s up to you, and of course on stream and stuff you can still call me Dream” the words were jumbled together, almost mumbled.

George rarely heard Dream sound that shy, usually the younger man was always cocky and confident and he was the shy one of the two.

“Then no problem, _Clay_.”

* * *

They hung up about an hour later, Dream arguing that he needed to shower and eat, but the truth was that every time George called him Clay his stomach would flip, his heart soaring in his chest, and he wasn’t sure he could physically take much more before saying something stupid to George about it.

What was wrong with him?

Deep down he knew perfectly, but how could he admit it? He stood up from his bed, taking a blank piece of paper and a pen and sitting at his desk.

He wrote at the top of the page:

 _‘Do I lov-’_ he crossed out the words

 _‘Do I like George?’_ , better.

He traced a vertical line in the middle of the page, dividing it into two columns that he simply labeled _‘Yes’_ and _‘No’._

He stared at the _‘Yes’_ one immediately writing down: 

_‘I think he’s good looking’_

_That’s an understatement._

That man was unfairly beautiful, he thought of his ivory smooth skin, chocolate brown eyes and his smile that could light up a room. But that fact was practically a universal truth, commonly accepted by everyone, he even saw fans calling him a child of Aphrodite via donos in a recent livestream and he couldn’t help but agree. 

He wrote down _‘everyone else think so too’_ opposite the first statement in the _‘No’_ column.

 _‘Pretty much anything he says makes me laugh’_ And all of his friends called him whipped or a simp because of it.

 _‘I like talking to him’_ This one didn’t need an explanation, he spent hours on call with George every day, the man’s presence in his life as natural as air.

 _‘I think/talk about him way too often_ ’ he thought back to the most recent MCC where people had clipped every time he had talked about George to his team and the resulting compilation of clips was embarrassingly long.

 _‘The **thing** when he says my name’ _he was too embarrassed to write it down, and he didn’t know how to describe the fluttering of his heart when the older man pronounced his name.

He had to pause for a second, feeling slightly overwhelmed by the amount of evidence pointing him towards the obvious: he had a crush on George.

He looked at the _'No’_ column, trying desperately to think of something to add in it.

 _‘He’s my friend’_ he wrote.

 _Ah yes of course,_ he scoffed, knowing that George being his friend didn’t change anything to the fact that these weren’t _friendly_ feelings he was currently experiencing, he definitely didn’t think about Sapnap like that, as much as he dearly loved the man.

Then there was the whole issue of George being a _man_ , not that he had any problem against LGBT+ people, but he never thought of himself as being anything other than straight before. 

“Bisexual?”

He murmured the word, thinking about it for a while, it rolled off his tongue nicely enough, it wasn’t as strange as it should be to think of himself as bi. He had always admitted easily enough that men could be beautiful, but his appreciation had always been platonic before, purely aesthetic… until George.

He shrugged to himself, it freaked him out more to admit that he had feelings for George, out of all people, than to think about the fact that George was most definitely not a woman.

Patches pawed at his leg before jumping into his laps purring.

“Yeah I guess I just came out to you, uh?” _And to myself too._

He carefully tucked the cat in his arms before getting up, heading to the kitchen to get them both some much needed food.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he gently deposited his cat on his couch with one hand, using the other to check his notifications, swiping away most of them, he would reply to people later, but then he saw that George had sent him a picture, a screenshot of his contact info, his contact picture was a photo of Patches and his name was simply set as “Clay” when he knew it used to be “Dream” before.

He smiled, feeling giddy, and before he could fully realize what he had typed out he sent a text back ‘ _I should send you a pic of me to go with that’_

_Wait, what?_

Did he just tell George, _The_ George, he would send him a picture of himself?

_‘Are you fucking with me or are you for real?’_

Even thousands of miles away, Dream could feel the disbelief radiating from George, and he couldn’t blame the man, he had always done everything to avoid showing his face, and he had just spontaneously offered it like it meant nothing.

_‘Uh i didn’t really think this through but I guess I’m serious, I feel like we’ve known each other for forever now, and you’ve told me personal things and stuff, I just feel shitty giving nothing back’_

He waited anxiously for George’s response, seeing the dots indicating he was writing popping up multiple times then stopping every couple of seconds for almost a minute.

_‘I don’t want you to feel like you have to Clay, I don’t want this as like a pity thing because I came out to you or because of what happened yesterday’_

_Oh._

George thought he pitied him.

_‘I don’t pity you George, this was a long time coming, but we should probably do it properly, maybe facetime me after MCC tomorrow?’_

He hoped the adrenaline rush from the competition would help him with the stress of showing his face to George.

_‘Okay :))_

_See you tomorrow (literally)’_

Imagining the smile on George's face was enough to drown the stress in pure delight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I have another angsty fic if yall want to read it :)
> 
> A special thanks to littlemisssunmin, for being an absolute sweetheart and leaving comments motivating me to write this :D
> 
> You can comment, leave kudos, or do nothing, it's up to you folks :)
> 
> But i do really appreciate each and every one of you who do take the time to read, review, or just bookmark or subscribe to this dumb little thing i'm doing

**Author's Note:**

> nes#6661 on discord if someone wants to come talk to me :)


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